Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton Classics): Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Updated Edition: 15 (Princeton Classics, 15)

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The central character's knowledge of slashers and her intense personality brought to mind Jade from the author's The Lake Witch trilogy, so I found myself rooting for her despite her questionable morality. I also generally disagree with the author's takeaways, but found her analysis to be interesting/worthy of consideration. Okay, so at the moment, I'm actually halfway through it, but I'm enjoying it immensely, not least because it combines my love of horror movies with my love of analyzing the crap out of everything for its feminist implications. the new prominence of women is the structural effect of a greater investment in the victim function… modern horror seems especially interested in the trials of everyperson, and everyperson is on his or her own in facing the menace, without help from the authorities…it is not only in their capacity as victims that these women appear in these films.

Victor boosted Jenna over the tall, solid fence—like she hadn’t grown up scrambling over half the fences in East Texas herself? Men, Women, and Chainsaws did a lot to legitimize the genre and argue for feminist subtexts in the horror films of the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s. I think this is no longer the case… just considering Scream, for example, Jamie Kennedy’s character dies in the sequel yet never is represented as sexually transgressive (although maybe his lust for Sidney counts?

Maybe the dropping of the weapon is also another means to bring everything back to normal by the end of the film. This isn't to say the book is entirely wretched, the 3rd and 1st chapters have some really strong components but they are often thatched together with long digressions into psychoanalytic theory that simply lose me (not in the sense that i do not comprehend what the theory is saying but, rather, i do not comprehend *why* i would in any way be convinced of the theory). The reason is that I have been picking away at some of the short stories by Stephen Graham Jones, one of my favorite authors, and I found one that is so accessible and such a quick read that I want to spread the word of this awesome author.

I’m enjoying enjoying the book so far and do recommend it to anyone interested in a feminist analysis of horror film.She seems to feel the need to authenticate the horror films she discusses by aligning them with mainstream Hollywood movies. However, I found this to be one of the most chilling moments of the movie because we never see male fear. SGJ is always fun to read, and his short stories are awesome little slices of gritty East Texas life, with lots of dusty flat spaces and flea bitten dogs under dilapidated trailers.

One criticism, perhaps unfair, is that the content is a bit dated, since this was published in 1992. I suppose that, despite the fact that the final girl does become the active hero, pushing the action forward as she hunts the killer during the film’s final act, it is the killer who continues to push the action forward past the film’s conclusion. It doesn't matter if you're into Stephen King, Octavia Butler, Jack Ketchum or Shirley Jackson, this is the place to share that love and discuss to your heart's content.I’m reading and listening to Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J Clover (hardcopy and audiobook because I like being read to and following along), which is about the women of horror movies.

Men, Women, and Chainsaws" follows Jenna, who has been abandoned by both her adopted parents and her man-ho fiancé. Thesis: Horror’s target audience, adolescent males, are able to identify with a female character (at least for most of the film) because horror operates partly through a one-sex system in which gender is determined by behavior rather than anatomy. The decline of slasher films, which the author laments here, would see a dramatic increase in the years following: Scream and its iconic self-awareness would be nearly as influential as Halloween was all those years ago, horror remakes would become a veritable class of their own (even Scream 4 is in on this), and documentary-styled shockers would bring a frightening clarity of realism to an otherwise mythic form. While this isn't my favorite of his blood drinkers (that honor—so far—remains with "Wait for Night"), it's certainly the most inventive, which earns it points! To only have Jessica (“Spit”’s victim) as our hero is unacceptable as our only perspective, not to mention that she leaves no witnesses to her triumph (which leads to a whole other thesis point), because the SA victim is seen as less.

Her assertions are based on second wave feminism (she began writing in ‘86, so this is unsurprising) and Freudian analysis, which I argue is just as flawed in literary study as it is in psychology, without the potential real-life consequences of the latter. Knowing it is horror, you kind of play along but there are a few moments where you can feel him winking at the reader like, oh have I fooled you, or is there more to come? It wasn't my top favorite story of all time from SGJ, but I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who likes this fantastic author as much as I do!